The UK government has announced a £155 million investment to improve the resilience of the nation’s Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems
PNTs are core technologies that support essential services, including telecommunications, transport, and financial trading.
The investment was announced by the Science Minister at the Royal Institute of Navigation’s annual PNT Leadership Seminar and aims to safeguard the country against increasing risks to satellite-based systems and to drive national renewal.
Protecting essential signals
Modern society depends heavily on accurate and reliable PNT capabilities. From mobile phone networks to navigation tools and digital financial transactions, PNT signals enable routine activities across the economy.
A government study has previously estimated that a 24-hour outage of satellite navigation services could cost the UK £1.4 billion, reflecting the scale of reliance on these technologies.
In recent years, threats to satellite-delivered PNT have grown. Hostile actors have shown the ability to jam or spoof signals during geopolitical conflicts, and naturally occurring phenomena such as solar flares also pose significant challenges. As these risks increase, the UK is accelerating efforts to diversify and strengthen its PNT infrastructure to ensure continuity of essential services.
A better-protected national network
The investment will support a programme focused on boosting national resilience, strengthening domestic research, and expanding the country’s leadership in emerging PNT technologies.
Seventy-one million of the funding will be used to begin development of the UK’s National Enhanced Long-Range Navigation (eLoran) programme. This ground-based system is designed to provide PNT services that operate independently of satellites, making them far more resistant to interference.
By providing reliable coverage on land, in the air, and at sea, eLoran will form a core layer of future national resilience.
Alongside this, £68 million will be allocated to advancing the National Timing Centre (NTC) programme. Delivered by the National Physical Laboratory, this initiative will create the UK’s first distributed national timing infrastructure. It is expected to support resilience in digital networks while enabling innovation across sectors that depend heavily on precision timing, including 5G, secure communications, and autonomous transport.
Monitoring threats and advancing research
To improve early detection and response capabilities, £13 million has been allocated to develop a UK-wide satellite navigation interference monitoring system. This programme will allow the government to track and respond to PNT threats such as jamming, spoofing, and other forms of disruption, creating one of the most advanced systems of its kind globally.
A further £3 million will support research into space-based time transfer systems, which aim to deliver global timing services independent of existing satellite constellations. This research is positioned to help prepare the UK for a future in which demand for secure, high-precision timing grows sharply alongside emerging technologies.
Strengthening industry and international partnerships
The announcement follows a year of significant progress in PNT policy and collaboration. The UK has recently deepened cooperation with the United States and France on PNT resilience and has engaged industry through consultations to identify barriers to growth and innovation.
By investing in infrastructure, research, and industrial capability, the government aims to reinforce the UK’s position as a global leader in PNT technologies.
